Friday, April 11th: Quick Hits
GE's Shockwave - GE missed on its earnings and lowered its guidance for 2008. The stock market did not care for it either. The DOW was down over 250 points, NASDAQ dropped over 60 and SP500 slid 27.
Stocks to Watch - Here are a few stocks that are at or near their 52 week high and obviously have performed well in 2008 when compared to the overall market. I have put a chart up of Steel Dynamics (STLD) because it looks to be in a nice trading range. Here they are:
FAST,
GILD,
ISRG,
JOYG,
SIAL and
STLD. The Chart was made in StrategyDesk from TDAmeritrade.
Thursday, April 10th: Quick Hits
Microsoft vs. Yahoo - I guess the gloves are definitely off now, if there was any doubt before. Yahoo is now trying to hook up with AOL to combine their Internet operations. Yahoo earlier this week said they were in talks with Google about using their advertising on searches. This is on top of the jabs Microsoft and Yahoo exchanged over last weekend and the early part of this week.
News Corp wants to jump in the ring and apparently is in talks with Microsoft about a joint bid for Yahoo. I am not sure how this whole thing is going to play out but I have to think the big winner so far is Google. Even if Microsoft is successful in its takeover bid, it will be a long way down the road. It would hardly be a smooth transition to merge the two to try and compete with Google.
The sad thing about this situation is I am a Microsoft shareholder and the stock looked ready to take off in the Fall. Microsoft reached $37.50 a share back on November 2nd, which is a price this stock hasn’t seen since 2001, and as soon as the Yahoo news hit it went back down to the high 20’s again. Let us see what today brings.
Wednesday, April 9th: Quick Hits
Banks Getting Stuffed with Cash - Well yesterday, WaMu was stuffed with 7 billion in capital and Citigroup is close to unloading 12 billion in leveraged loans, but are we any closer to figuring out this mess? I would venture to say, no chance. The noose around the neck of loans isn't about to get loose anytime soon. The question is can the consumer say afloat and can business owners hold off on large layoffs long enough for the financial institutions to get their houses in order? It is going to be close so in the spirit of the Olympics let us hope the consumer wins this race.
Tuesday, April 8th: Quick Hits
Alcoa Fires a SCUD - Alcoa fires a SCUD off the market’s bow by posting a 54% drop in 1st quarter net income when compared to last year. They reported higher costs and a sagging dollar as the reasons for the drop. Other companies of interest due to report this week are Shaw Group, Bed Bath and Beyond, Circuit City, General Electric and Fastenal. GE could be big as far as understanding how the economy as a whole is holding up.
Stocks to Watch - Here are a few stocks that did NOT pass the following 3 tests on Friday 4/4, but did pass all 3 on Monday 4/7. 1. MACD line passed zero. 2. Stochastic's line was above 80. 3. Closing price was above 50 day moving average. Here are a few
AIG,
BTU,
CBE,
NYX,
PCP,
PPL and
TXN.
Monday, April 7th: Quick Hits
Going out of Business Sale - The airline industry has invited everyone to its going out of business sale. Aloha Airlines said goodbye along with Skybus and ATA. They most likely will not be the only ones to go belly up with the price of fuel and the economy slumping the way it is. If you own airline stocks, you have guts or enjoy pain.
Stocks to Watch - Barron's articles usually move stock prices on Monday mornings and here are some that could move. On the plus side -
WYE,
CCL,
DRYS and
F.
Here are a couple that could slide -
FNM and
FRE. They also were not hot on the brokers so we will see how those stocks do today.